


To Have Lived And Lost

by bookwrm130



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Genre: Elle Sheridan introspective, F/F, I am in love with this character sue me, only mentions of Hollstein
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 12:16:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12606432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwrm130/pseuds/bookwrm130
Summary: She was 19, sheltered and protected from the world, when a young girl with alabaster skin and raven hair intrudes upon her quiet life.AKA the Elle Sheridan piece that has been going through my mind for days.





	To Have Lived And Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I did it. I finally just wrote this down instead of letting it float around in my head. Wrote it all in one go, so probably not super coherent and may contain mistakes. Enjoy!

I

She thought her life was set in stone. She thought she was on top of the world. She thought that she finally had everything that everyone had ever talked about in the stories and poems. She thought wrong.

Carmilla. Her Carmilla. No, not her Carmilla, not anymore. Maybe never was.

Her.

She was a monster.

How dare she. How dare she!

She came into her life and brought with her her stories and poems and her talks of life and death.

Her with her alabaster skin and shining raven hair.

Her with her soft lilting voice and soft bright eyes.

Her and her soft skin and warm embrace.

Her and her promises.

Promises of life as lovers, promises of death as lovers, promises of life and love and forever after.

All lies!

Lies, lies, lies!

Was any of it true? She trusted her. She wanted her. She loved her. But did Carmilla ever actually want her? Did she actually love her? She never trusted her, most definitely. Because all Carmilla ever did was lie.

She was a monster.

A monster who said she loved her, while she drank her blood.

While she drank her blood!

She saw all through her lies now.

The nightmares of deathly still womanly figure, the pale skin and lack of spark in her own movements, the pain on her breast and below her throat, the feeling of being dragged across the stream as she sleeps.

It was all her fault.

She didn’t love her. There was no possible way that a person could love someone yet still hurt her.

She hates her. Hates Carmilla.

Hates her because she lied.

Hates her because she gave false hopes.

Hates her because she’s a monster.

She hates her, she hates her, she hates her.

She hates her.

She hates her.

She.

Hates.

Her.

She hates her and here she sits in the carriage, crying.

Crying for the love she lost, crying for the woman she lost.

Crying for her Carmilla.

* * *

 

II

She has lost all sense of time. She has been in this world for months? Years? Decades? She doesn’t know.

It’s starting again. The day that her life ended. It starts as it always does. Her sitting in the reading room, the sun shining bright through the window, in contrast to the turmoil that she was feeling at the moment. Her Carmilla walks in, just as she remembers her. Alabaster skin, dark raven hair, soft bright eyes. Her Carmilla speaks, just as she remembers, high lilting voice, so soft yet so full of excitement.

She remembers exactly what she was thinking, as her Carmilla speaks.

It cannot be true, she had thought. She can’t be right. She must have lied.

But it would explain everything, she also had thought. It would explain all those dreams. It would explain why Carmilla only comes out in the late afternoon. It would explain Carmilla’s mysterious disappearances at night. It would explain why she never eats with anyone’s company.

As she sees herself walk towards the window, she finds herself mouthing the same exact words her other self said

_I met a woman in the village today, She said some strange things about you._

She almost winces when she sees herself cut her own hands.

_Why won’t you look at me Carmilla? Look at me!_

_She was right. You’re a monster._

She hates this part.

She hates this part because what comes next is even worse than finding out Carmilla was a monster.

She braces herself for the moment when the room shifts and turns into the cave that that woman dragged her into. The cave where she lost her life.

But it never happened.

Instead she found herself inside a room with two beds.

Ah, it must be another one of those dreams.

She doesn’t know why she is able to do this, enter the dreams of the girls Carmilla now targets. She tries her best, to shape those dreams, even talks to those girls, to convince them to stay away from her. Stay away from the lovely girl with the soft bright eyes and soft voice. She’s beautiful and wonderful and charming, but she is still a monster. Do not die for her, she tries to say. Stay away.

She tries her best, and she thinks her efforts must have worked because she has never seen the girls that Carmilla went after in this nightmarish hell.

* * *

 

III

She’s watching herself slice her hand when the room shifts. That’s strange, she thinks. Instead of shifting into darkness as it usually does, it feels like the room is splitting apart at the seams and light is leaking through those splits. Suddenly, her vision is filled with lights and she has to close her eyes.

When she opens them, it is dark, yet also light. She sees figures that seems to be made of light swims around her, some had familiar faces that she had seen in the nightmare land. She looks around her, trying to make sense of her already nonsensical existence, when she feels drawn towards something. She turns her head and she sees her.

Her Carmilla.

No, not her Carmilla. Not anymore. Never was.

She sees that same alabaster skin, the same eyes, still soft but less bright, the same raven locks of hair, not as long as she remembered, but still flowing down her shoulders. She reaches out towards her, and she sees Carmilla reaching back. Carmilla’s face is still so beautiful, she thinks, almost exactly the same as I last saw of her. What a beautiful monster.

Then her vision is filled once more in light before it turns completely black.

* * *

 

IV

She’s back again. To this world made of dead minds. But it’s different this time. Her nightmare is still playing, over and over again. But unlike before, she can leave. She can walk towards the door and open it. She can explore the other parts of this nightmare land.

She finds the other girls. The ones that woman had killed. Always girls. She doesn’t see a single man anywhere.

She also can catch glimpses of Carmilla through mirrors and windows in this world. She’s different now. Carmilla is alive. She is alive. She doesn’t know how she knows this but Carmilla is alive. With a pulse. With blood rushing through her vein.

She’s with the last girl she remembered she ever warned.

Laura.

What a girl, to be able to tame Carmilla like that. To tame that beautiful monster.

She catches glimpses of Carmilla travelling the world with Laura. She sees them travelling to hot deserts with giant red rocks. She sees them traipse the snow covered mountains. She sees them dancing on the stone paved roads under the moonlight. She sees them walking by the ocean’s side.

She sees them travelling the world and she seethes.

How dare she.

How dare she travels the world that she never got to experience.

How dare she lives her life, happy and joyous with a girl in her arms.

How dare this monster be happy while she and all these girls suffer through their nightmares.

She seethes and she rages as she walks through the shadows of the nightmare land.

She shoudn’t be alive. I should be alive. That life is mine!

* * *

 

V

The world around her shifts yet again. This time it was also accompanied by a pulling, right behind her navel.

The shadows starts solidifying and she finds herself in a familiar room. A room she hadn’t seen in so long. Her bedroom. It is dusty and dirty and in shambles. She walks towards the door when she trips over something. She looks down to see what has caught her feet when realization hits her.

She tripped.

She had tripped over a broken piece of furniture.

She can trip over something.

She touches the wall next to her and she runs her fingers over it. She can feel the textures of the wallpaper, all covered in dust.

Solid.

She is solid.

Her hand flies to her chest, trying to find a heartbeat.

Nothing.

She feels her throat.

Nothing but cold, solid flesh.

She’s not alive, but she’s not dead.

She runs towards the main door.

As she makes her way, she thinks about the life she can finally have. Maybe she’s not alive, but neither was Carmilla and she was still living. She thinks about the mountains she can now see, she thinks about the wide ocean, she thinks about green forests and blue lakes. She thinks about stone paved roads and glittering buildings. She thinksof  all these things as she runs down the staircase.

She reaches the door and pulls.

She pulls again, harder.

She pulls again and again and again, rattling the door that should be falling apart like the rest of the house, but isn’t.

She yells out her rage as her dreams are taken away from her once again.

* * *

 

VI

It’s not fair, she thinks.

She has an arrow in her shoulder and she sees Carmilla, that beautiful monster Carmilla, arms wrapped around that girl, blowing the lights out, one by one.

She loses yet again.

She lost her love. Then she lost her life. And when she thought she could get that life back, when it was in the palm of her hand, she lost it again.

What that girl, what Laura, said, plays through her mind as she sits, clutching her shoulder in pain.

 _We can help you find your peace_.

Peace.

What is peace.

She’s tired now. She’s tired of fighting and losing.

The pain in her shoulder throbs, but the pain helps clear her mind.

Maybe she has been fighting this too much. Maybe she’s been clinging to this life that she lost for too long. Maybe she’s too selfish and self absorbed to think about the other girls that are also affected by this beautiful monster. Maybe it is time to let go.

Maybe it is time for peace.

She can feel her body feeling lighter, losing feeling, but in a pleasant manner. She looks around her, seeing the ballroom of her manor for quite possibly the last time. She feels lighter and her vision blurs and turns white.

* * *

 

VII

“Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when summer comes.”

She can hear a voice reads out one of her favorite poems. A familiar, high, lilting voice.

She opens her eyes.

Alabaster skin, soft, bright eyes, and long raven locks. She reaches up to touch a warm, soft cheek.

The voice stops its reading, and those bright eyes looks away from the book to look down at her.

“What is the matter, Elle?”

“Oh, nothing at all, dear Carmilla. Keep on reading. I do love to hear your voice.” She strokes the warm cheek under her fingers.

“Of course, my dear.”

Carmilla, her Carmilla, continues her reading.

Elle settles into Carmilla’s lap, finally feeling at peace.


End file.
